Industry Welcomes UP RERA's Move To Extend Deadlines

The real estate community on Thursday welcomed the Uttar Pradesh Real Estate Regulatory Authority's (RERA) decision to extend the deadline for completion of real estate projects by six months in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

Industry insiders said that this relief would help them use all their resources and try to deliver as per the new deadlines.

Ashok Gupta, CMD, Ajnara India, said it was heartening that the UP RERA had honoured developers' request to extend the delivery timelines as it was a complete lockdown with no activity taking place.

"The challenges have not stopped as labor problem will now raise its head even though almost all big developers have tried to retain laborers during lockdown. As of now we have to go with the government directives and shifts allowed by the government. The solution would be to get work done in double shifts. A worldwide calamity of this sort has never happened and hurdles that it is bringing are far from foreseeable," he said.

Dhiraj Jain, Director, Mahagun Group, added that even though it was a welcome decision which would help the developers from going into default for sometime, yet there was an urgent need for some specific steps for liquidity generation in the real estate sector.

"There is nearly Rs 7.8 lakh crore with the banks at the present moment that has been parked with the RBI... It’s high time that amount is moved from the RBI and banks to percolate liquidity in the economy," Jain added.

Sagar Saxena, Project Head, Spectrum Metro, said while he welcomed the step taken by UP RERA, his company was "working tirelessly to stick to our deadline".

"There are challenges but it is possible to complete the project on time by employing the best of technologies," he said.

The decision was taken at the UP RERA's 35th meeting days after the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had last week announced that the deadline for all real estate projects registered under RERA which were to be completed on or after March 25 should be extended. The meeting was chaired by chairman Rajive Kumar and attended by all the members and senior officers of UP RERA.

The UP RERA said that as per the Central government instructions, the outbreak of COVID-19 shall be treated as an “act of God” and a “force majeure” event under the RERA Act.

"All registered projects for which the completion date or revised completion date or extended completion date as per registration expires on or after March 25, 2020, the registration and completion date or revised completion date or extended completion date is automatically extended by six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic," the authority said.

The six-month extension will also be provided to such projects which have already availed one-year extension as provided in the RERA Act on or after 25th March 2020, it added.

In its advisory to the state RERA authorities last week, the Centre had said that the regulators could extend by another three months the date of completion if needed. They can also issue fresh “project registration certificates” with a revised timeline at the earliest.